Welcome

Welcome could not have come at a better time. New wave-revivalists are popping up everywhere. And electronic dance music has been thriving as a result, both as a genre and as an influence to acts like Crystal Castles and James Pants, Stones Throw's newest left-fielder.

Pants, who hails from Spokane, Washington, first met head Stones Throw'er Peanut Butter Wolf in 2001. PBW was DJing and Pants, with his prom date at his side, approached the producer/DJ. He asked if he could take PBW record shopping and Pants has been a member of the Stones Throw roster ever since. Although he started out as an intern, the multi-instrumentalist began making a name for himself on the Chrome Children compilations. And if you have had a chance to hear those tracks, you know that Pants is right at home on this label.

After offering samplings of his retro-dance numbers, Pants crafted his aptly-titled debut album, Welcome. Clocking in at just over 42 minutes, the record is the equivalent of Madlib being locked inside a DeLorean with its flux capacitor ready for time travel. Yes, I mean that kind of DeLorean. Hey PBW, how about a Pants versus Madlib album? I get the feeling both of them could create something both innovative and accessible. But I digress. The music here is a dizzying mixture of hip-hop's meager beginnings and, as previously mentioned, new wave. The boom-bap is there, but it's used subtly, as the reverb-rich synths dominate. Take "Crystal Lite" for example. With its simplistic keyboards and disco drums, the track just oozes with '80s nostalgia. And Deon Davis's soulful guest vocals make the travel back in time complete.

Then there is the more hip-hop heavy lead single "Cosmic Rapp". Pants takes this time to show off best Mantronix impression, minus any actual rapping. The early electro-hop production is there, though, and Pants pulls it off (no pun intended, I promise). Also notable is the MF DOOM-esque "Good Things", which sounds like a left-over beat from MM…FOOD?. One of the most impressive tracks here, however, is the opener, "Theme From Paris". Each and every part of this song works. Not only is it the perfect way to start the album, but the drums, which bang and crash behind the spacey synths, are absolutely perfect. It's just rare that you find such lush drums on an album of this kind.

The problem with Welcome is that it suffers from a lack of variety. But, if you're into the electro-dance scene, that might not bother you. As someone removed from that crowd, however, many of the tracks blend together. Besides the same-y nature of the tracks, some of them come off as filler material. In particular, tracks like the uninspiring and flat-out dull "My Girl" and "Green Rivers", which just has too much going on, mar Pants's solid debut.

This is an album both hipsters and '80s-lovers could dance to together, which would be both ironic and, in its own strange way, beautiful. Although it would be a stretch to say Pants is transcending time here, he has definitely created something fresh, catchy, and, most importantly, enjoyable. And seeing how he is only in his mid-20s and signed to one of underground hip-hop's best labels, I am sure we will be seeing a lot more of Mr. Pants soon.

White Hills epic '80s callback
Stop Mute Defeat is a determined march against encroaching imperial darkness; their eyes boring into the shadows for danger but they're aware that blinding lights can kill and distort truth. From "Overlord's" dark stomp casting nets for totalitarian warnings to "Attack Mode", which roars in with the tribal certainty that we can survive the madness if we keep our wits, the record is a true and timely win for Dave W. and Ego Sensation. Martin Bisi and the poster band's mysterious but relevant cool make a great team and deliver one of their least psych yet most mind destroying records to date. Much like the first time you heard Joy Division or early Pigface, for example, you'll experience being startled at first before becoming addicted to the band's unique microcosm of dystopia that is simultaneously corrupting and seducing your ears. - Morgan Y. Evans

The year in song reflected the state of the world around us. Here are the 70 songs that spoke to us this year.

70. The Horrors - "Machine"

On their fifth album V, the Horrors expand on the bright, psychedelic territory they explored with Luminous, anchoring the ten new tracks with retro synths and guitar fuzz freakouts. "Machine" is the delicious outlier and the most vitriolic cut on the record, with Faris Badwan belting out accusations to the song's subject, who may even be us. The concept of alienation is nothing new, but here the Brits incorporate a beautiful metaphor of an insect trapped in amber as an illustration of the human caught within modernity. Whether our trappings are technological, psychological, or something else entirely makes the statement all the more chilling. - Tristan Kneschke

"...when the history books get written about this era, they'll show that the music community recognized the potential impacts and were strong leaders." An interview with Kevin Erickson of Future of Music Coalition.

Last week, the musician Phil Elverum, a.k.a. Mount Eerie, celebrated the fact that his album A Crow Looked at Me had been ranked #3 on the New York Times' Best of 2017 list. You might expect that high praise from the prestigious newspaper would result in a significant spike in album sales. In a tweet, Elverum divulged that since making the list, he'd sold…six. Six copies.

Under the lens of cultural and historical context, as well as understanding the reflective nature of popular culture, it's hard not to read this film as a cautionary tale about the limitations of isolationism.

I recently spoke to a class full of students about Plato's "Allegory of the Cave". Actually, I mentioned Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" by prefacing that I understood the likelihood that no one had read it. Fortunately, two students had, which brought mild temporary relief. In an effort to close the gap of understanding (perhaps more a canyon or uncanny valley) I made the popular quick comparison between Plato's often cited work and the Wachowski siblings' cinema spectacle, The Matrix. What I didn't anticipate in that moment was complete and utter dissociation observable in collective wide-eyed stares. Example by comparison lost. Not a single student in a class of undergraduates had partaken of The Matrix in all its Dystopic future shock and CGI kung fu technobabble philosophy. My muted response in that moment: Whoa!

Allen Ginsberg and Robert Lowell at St. Mark's Church in New York City, 23 February 1977

Scholar Christopher Grobe crafts a series of individually satisfying case studies, then shows the strong threads between confessional poetry, performance art, and reality television, with stops along the way.

Tracing a thread from Robert Lowell to reality TV seems like an ominous task, and it is one that Christopher Grobe tackles by laying out several intertwining threads. The history of an idea, like confession, is only linear when we want to create a sensible structure, the "one damn thing after the next" that is the standing critique of creating historical accounts. The organization Grobe employs helps sensemaking.